DB to use electric car battery packs from KIA for energy storage
Deutsche Bahn and KIA will cooperate on so-called second-life battery storage systems for green energy in a bid to save electricity. Encore, a corporate start-up of the DB Bahnbau Group, will take the lead in this new endeavour.
Second-life battery storage systems consist of bundled lithium-ion battery packs from used electric vehicles, in this case from South-Korean manufacturer KIA. After several years on the road, some battery packs lack sufficient remaining capacity for daily traffic. Yet at the same time they’re still in too good a condition to consider recycling. Those battery packs are then used for stationary purposes, such as energy storage.
Encore will be tasked with procuring lithium-ion battery packs from KIA electric vehicles. They will then be inspected and checked for residual capacity, before their inclusion in a second-life battery storage system. From 2023 onwards, Encore aims to ramp up production of these storage systems to several hundred. A pilot project with one-such system has been ongoing in Berlin since July 2022.
The second-life battery storage system will be built at the ICE manufacturing site in Leipzig, near the digital test center in Scheibenberg (Saxony) and at the Zorneding train station in Bavaria.
Rail Infra Forum 2022
The developments in sustainable rolling stock and the associated infrastructure such as recharging and refuelling are the central theme of the Rail Infra Forum on 12 and 13 October in Berlin. From alternative fuels and batteries in passenger rail to on-track machines, and from recharging batteries under catenary to hydrogen refuelling. The programme and speakers can be found on the event website.
